Developed by Subset Games for Playdate Season 2.

Comparisons allow us to set expectations about games. This is easy with a sequel, as we can say that Echoes of Wisdom is an iteration on past Zelda games. It also works for games that combine genres, like how Star of Providence mixed the spaceship shoot ‘em up with the roguelike. But Fulcrum Defender, a minimalist, abstract arcade game from the creators of FTL and Into The Breach, defies easy comparison; the closest I can manage is to say that it bears resemblance to the analogue clock on the Playdate’s lock screen. So, what is there to expect?

In Fulcrum Defender, you play as a single turret, standing stationary in a circular field as enemies approach you from the field’s boundaries. Your line of sight is represented by a dotted line that sweeps like a clock’s minute hand as you turn the Playdate’s crank. Enemies damage you on contact, so your goal is to dispatch them with bullets and survive to the end of a ten-minute round.

Already we have some elements of the familiar: “turret,” “enemies,” “bullets.” And it’s telling that, in video games, reduction and abstraction often leave the language of combat intact. But it’s also telling how combat is implemented here, as vague symbols rather than facsimiles. Your “turret” is a plain circle with a single eyeball. Your “enemies” are shapes, like squares, diamonds, and crosses, and they have odd names like “Blip” and “Splotch.” And your “bullets” are rendered as small, gray circles, emitted with a muffled tweeting sound rather than a bang.

What is there to make of this abstraction? While you could read for details of a human-legible setting, it’s more fruitful to ask, what is being asked of me? What does the game communicate through what it asks of the player? The answer is rhythm, music, and consideration.

Each time you start a game, the same ambient music plays, a low-pressure mixture of synthesizers and piano. Absent from this track is percussion, which is instead supplied by the collision of your bullets with the enemies. “Blips” disappear with a clapping sound, “Swishes” sound more like a snare, and “Clashes” give off a sound like a mallet hitting a cymbal. Further, enemies often appear in groups of three, giving a sense of timing and rhythm to the game’s shooting: three bullets fired can turn into a steady clap-clap-clap sound on contact. Fulcrum Defender isn’t a rhythm game that asks you to stay on-beat, but creating a beat can be helpful, as firing on rhythm can mean not firing too hastily and expending all of your ammo. And there is also a rhythm outside of music.

When I first started Fulcrum Defender, I thought I understood it as a game that clearly divided skill-based action and strategic choice. The shooting is action: turn the crank to line up your aim and fire bullets at foes. But then there’s strategic choice in the form of periodic upgrade options that pause the action. These can be a choice between buffs, such as an improvement to your bullets’ speed or damage, or a choice between supplementary weapons, like a shotgun or a flail. In this way, Fulcrum Defender felt like it established its own rhythm of alternating kinds of play, of bouncing back and forth between automatic action and strategic choice.

These rhythms exist, the rhythms of music and the rhythms of action and choice. But they are not distinct, not black-and-white. They are patterns that can benefit you, but also lead you to false assumptions.

Firing on groups of three “Swishes” as they spiraled around me, I would sometimes miss, which would jerk me out of automatic pattern-following and into conscious choice. Do I re-orient my aim to catch the enemy I missed? I’m already turning toward my next target; do I turn back? Similarly, the supplementary weapons provided choice in their execution. The flail, for instance, is swung around the turret by rapidly turning the crank. It’s useful for clearing out crowds, but spinning the crank obscures the aim of your regular weapon, meaning that it benefits from judicious deployment. As I dug into these nuances, I discovered other choices as well, ones that I hadn’t bothered to check for. Do you always prioritize eliminating the closest enemies, or are there other factors? Will perfect shooting get you out of every situation unscathed? And if it won’t, which enemies should you allow to make a hit?

When you begin an abstract game like Fulcrum Defender, you don’t start without expectation just because the game defies easy comparison. Instead, you form new ones based on first impressions. What I appreciate most about Fulcrum Defender is that it doesn’t just avoid easy comparison. It also demands seeing through expectation to gain greater understanding.